5 26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It will be said that where the elective franchise has once been con- 

 ceded it can not be recalled. I recognize the difficulties of the situa- 

 tion, but I do not admit that they are insurmountable. 



Instances are numerous where guards, limitations, and restrictions 

 have been imposed upon the elective franchise by legislative authority, 

 and it is but taking another step in this direction to establish the prin- 

 ciple which I have been advocating. 



No one will dispute that it is entirely competent for the Legislature, 

 when organizing municipal corporations, to prescribe the conditions 

 under which the elective franchise shall be exercised. If, then, the 

 legislators should come to approve this method, it could readily be ap- 

 plied in erecting future municipalities. 



In the case of cities like Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, etc., where 

 there are two legislative bodies in the city government, we might, 

 perhaps, make one of them elective by the popular vote, and the other 

 by a vote of the tax-payers only. It might be required that appropria- 

 tion bills and bills for raising the revenue should receive the approval 

 of both bodies. Then, by-and-by, when the people shall have come to 

 the conclusion that only one legislative body is needful, they might 

 decide to retain the one elected by the tax-payers and abolish the 

 other. 



Or, without in any way interfering with the right of suffrage in 

 the case of any one who is now a voter, it might be determined as to 

 any one who is not now a voter, that he shall not hereafter be entitled 

 to the municipal franchise unless he be a tax-payer. 



If the principle be correct, as I believe it to be, and if it be ac- 

 cepted by thoughtful men as one of the conditions of honest govern- 

 ment, the method by which it may be incorporated into the municipal 

 system will be devised. The method which has just been adopted by 

 Chicago for securing fair elections will doubtless help to correct many 

 of the evils which arise from what I have characterized as an unre- 

 stricted suffrage. The operations of this new election machinery will 

 be watched with great interest by all who take an interest in munici- 

 pal affairs, and it may be that from this source our deliverance is to 

 come. 



I notice one other particular in which reform in municipal govern- 

 ments is imperatively demanded : that is, the consideration ichich is 

 given to the needs of the proletariat. The truth of the aphorism, 

 "No man liveth to himself," more and more imposes itself on the at- 

 tention of thoughtful men. It is a truth which neither individuals 

 nor aggregations of individuals can afford to ignore. 



The first problem in social science ever submitted for consideration 

 was, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " It would seem as if ever since 

 that time the world had been endeavoring to find a negative answer 

 to the question. No such answer has been found. No such answer 

 can ever be found, because the law of reciprocal obligation is always 



